Summers in West Bengal are traditionally all about mangos and litchis.
MANGO
But this has turned out to be the Summer of the Egg and not even the most hard-boiled political observer could have seen that coming.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata
TMC, the party which had ruled West Bengal for the last 15 years was ousted from power in May by Mr Narendra Modi’s BJP, the party that has been ruling India for almost as long. One of the big charges against the TMC were allegations of corruption, big and small.
Now almost every day there comes news of some TMC party leader being pelted with eggs.
EGG THROWING
The targets have included the party national general secretary all the way down to local councillors and neighbourhood musclemen. Meanwhile keeping with the egg theme its existing legislators are being poached by rival factions while the rest scramble for cover.
Some say this is just political revenge by BJP. Others say its the pent-up anger of ordinary people.
Either way there is a thriving market for rotten eggs now, hitherto destined to become fish feed. The general consensus in Bengal seems to be that you cannot make a new omelet without cracking a few eggs.
It all makes one wonder though about the strange satisfaction we derive in throwing things, whether it’s snowballs or javelins. Or eggs. In hunting and gathering times being able to throw a spear accurately meant there was dinner that night. Slowly that became less of a necessity but throwing remains baked into many of our sports whether it’s cricket or darts. Accurate high-momentum throwing is a sign of our evolution as a species. Our primate cousins like chimpanzees are better at flinging than throwing. Science says a good throw, where brain and body work in perfect synchronisation, can result in a dopamine rush.
Perhaps that’s why when we throw something at someone powerful and it lands, for a moment we feel superhuman. In America frustrated activists often threw pies at politicians, an activity that came to be known as pie-ing. Famous anti-gay activist Anita Bryant had a disposable aluminium pie tin filled with banana cream thrown in her face by a gay activist in 1977.
BRYANT
Anti-capitalist protesters, incensed about wealth inequality have pied Bill Gates and economist Milton Friedman. On the other side of the political divide consumer advocate Ralph Nader and psychedelic evangelist Timothy Leary have gotten pies in their faces. A group called the Biotic Baking Brigade specialised in this as a form of protest. It was humorous, relatively non-violent, fed into a sort of David vs Goliath narrative, and ultimately made the news (and a mess). It was, writes journalist Ben Paynter, an “early political meme.”
Of course pies are not the only things we throw to vent at the powerful. When former US President George W Bush was addressing a press conference in Baghdad in 2008, an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at him calling it a “farewell kiss from the Iraqi people”.
BUSH
Bush ducked and the journalist ended up in prison though hundreds marched in solidarity with him, many carrying shoes attached to long poles. Closer home Pakistan’s Pervez Musharraf and India’s Arvind Kejriwal have also had shoes thrown at them. There have been more exotic missiles - banana and salted caramel milk shake at UK’s Reform politician Nigel Farage, condoms filled with purple powder at Tony Blair and a dildo for New Zealand minister Steven Joyce.
But in Bengal eggs have become so popular it’s being called Deem Therapy or Egg Therapy and it’s playing out like a reality show with a new episode every day. While there is scant sympathy for many of the targets, the glee with which this sport has been embraced proves something is deeply rotten and it’s not just the eggs. When legitimate means of protest, from marches to police reports to even Instagram and X posts are routinely squashed, the anger doesn’t go away. It festers like rotting eggs.
Today the target might be politicians perceived as corrupt and there is pleasure in seeing the powerful left with egg on their faces. But tomorrow it could be anyone whom the mob dislikes - an actor, a writer, a social worker, a freethinker, a protester. Unfortunately, deem therapy, satisfying as it might be in the moment, does not ultimately make for an egg-alitarian society.
This is Sandip Roy in Kolkata for KALW